Embracing transparency: Prebiotic pioneers team up to prove benefits with gut health tracker

TrooFoods, a prebiotic breakfast brand, has teamed up with Carbiotix, a leader in gut health testing, to offer the first ever gut health tracking service for fibre-based food products.

Offering a range of fibre rich cereal and syrup products since 2018, TrooFoods is now inviting its customers to track their gut health as often as they like using Carbiotix testing services provided through an extension of the TrooFoods website.

Kristofer Cook, CEO of Carbiotix, says this partnership makes TrooFoods the first prebiotic food brand to ‘embrace transparency’ and let customers check the gut health effects of their products.

“TrooFoods is a true innovator in the consumer F&B space and the first company in the world to embrace transparency when it comes to allowing customers to verify the gut health effects of using their products over time. ​

“Our LinkGut service will allow TrooFoods customers to cost-effectively monitor their gut health as often as they like, although we recommend doing it monthly for at least six months to overcome the natural variability with gut bacteria. ​

“By embracing transparency and true gut health data, we believe that TrooFoods will create a competitive advantage in terms of offering better products, building brand loyalty and improving the overall customer experience. ​

“We believe this will drive sales as customers better understand the link between their gut health and TrooFoods products​.”

The gut health test involves signing up to a one-off or monthly service, receiving a gut microbiome sample in the mail, taking a small faecal sample with a swab and vial, and sending this sample back to Carbiotix through the mail.

Mike and Helenor Rogers

Samples are analysed within 7-12 business days of receiving a sample and users are informed when a sample has arrived at Carbiotix lab and been analysed. Users will be able to track their gut health using Carbiotix Fiber Loving Bacteria (FLB) index on the same TrooFoods website and have access to additional services as they are rolled out across Carbiotix platform.

Helenor Rogers, co-founder of TrooFoods, says: "At just £29 per test, it is less than one third of the price of the current market leading tests. ​

"This ongoing low price is to encourage people to get involved and to test more than once so that they can see the impact of changing their diets." ​

Helenor's husband and co-founder Mike Rogers, says that Carbiotix and TrooFoods are aligned in their quest to improve gut health through soluble fibre.

"As companies, we are very much aligned regarding the gut health area and understand that for most people poor gut health develops over time, therefore time is needed to improve gut health. Moreover, that poor gut health is primarily a result of too little soluble fibre in people’s diets. ​Finding innovative ways to get people to consume more fibre is one core mission of both companies.”​

He and Cook both attended NutraIngredients’ Probiota conference last year and since both presented their businesses as pioneers in the field which confirmed the potential of their individual and combined offerings.

Prebiotic-boosted breakfast​

Mother and father team Mike and Helen Rogers launched their range of Troo Granola, the first gut-healthy cereal in plastic-free packs, in 2018.

Troo granola is made with 100% natural ingredients, no emulsifiers or preservatives with added inulin syrup to boost the fibre content of each serving to 9g.

They added Troo Spoonful of Fibre pure inulin syrup to the line-up shortly after launch. This provides about 8g or fibre and 1g of sugar per serving, allowing people to easily add fibre to their porridge, toast, crumpets etc.

Health check-up​

Carbiotix is an pre-clinical stage therapeutics company leveraging low-cost gut health testing and microbiome modulators to unlock the potential of the gut microbiome.

Carbiotix was founded in 2014 based on four years of research through the Department of Biotechnology at Lund University and the Anti-diabetic Food Centre (AFC) in Lund, Sweden.

In 2017, Carbiotix began development of its low-cost gut health testing platform and in 2018 launched the platform along with commencing a 600-person gut health study.

In 2019, the company began to leverage data from its low-cost gut health testing platform to ramp up therapeutic development activities in line with its long-term strategy to create microbiome modulators based on its proprietary soluble fiber, isolated strains and novel delivery mechanisms.